Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Last Saturday was the opening of the Laforet HARAJUKU pop-up shop in Paris! From September 23rd to October 3rd, several brands are featured at L'Exception, a French select shop: Angelic Pretty, Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Jane Marple, E Hypen, Nile Perch, Ciara and more. A large selection of brands that would please any Harajuku and Japanese fashion lover~

Many girls, including myself, have been waiting for this day with excitement. Early birds gathered around 9AM, one hour before the official opening time of the store in order to be the first ones in line and make sure to grab the best items! By 10AM, around thirty girls were queuing and before anyone else I was lucky enough to take some pictures of the store to share with you.

The selection of items was quite recent and large : there was a total of four racks, four mannequins and some shelves holding the accessories that were all from 2017 autumn-winter collection! Since the staff of L'Exception knew about the Harajuku fashion fans coming on the very first day, they did put the most iconic brands on display for the occasion: Angelic Pretty, Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Jane Marple, ... And this was definitely a good move! First half of the pop-up store was popular brands among Harajuku lovers and the other half was more designer/higher end brands such as FURFUR or Honey Salon.

L'Exception is quite big and Laforet HARAJUKU pop-up store took about one quarter of the room. Which was already amazing: I think the pop-up store itself had a nice size, one of the only things I would regret is that not all of the featured brands were displayed at the opening: some brands as E Hypen weren't for seen until the beginning of the afternoon, which mean several girls, myself included, left before being able to see all of the stock. I could easily go back to L'Exception since I'm living in Paris but some other girls can't or won't and therefore maybe missed one or several amazing items they would have wished for. But at least, the Harajuku fashion fans that couldn't be there on the very first day will also be able to find some really great items!

The second thing I would find regrettable is selection of items itself: I'm not exactly sure what were the conditions under each brands were presented. Was it a matter of number of items? Total worth of the stock? I really don't know, but the thing I do know is that the pop-up store was definitely lacking of accessories. Not counting the brands that only do accessories or smaller items such as Ciara (phone cases and covers) or feast (underwears), only Baby, the Stars Shine Bright and Alice and the Pirates brought accessories to match their stock : few legwears and headwears as long as an endless count of Usakumya and Kumakumya bags.

This lead to many girls leaving the store empty handed: since the brands featured in the pop-up are on the more expensive side, it was incredibly hard to find something under 50€ or even 100€. However, regarding the prices, on a happier note, all the items are priced quite closed to current the euro-yen exchange. There was no taxes or hidden fees which means it was basically like shopping directly in Japan! What a great surprise!

In my opinion, the overall experience was really nice: Laforet and L'Exception staff were lovely and professional, many amazing brands were featured, the prices were really nice compared to the original ones in yen. Apart from the lack of accessories and the fact that not all brands were presented at the same time, I would say this definitely was a really good first time pop-up store for Laforet! I hope it will encounters the success it deserves and that they will soon come back with even more brands (and more accessories) ♡

Thank you for reading! See you soon for more endless writings about Japanese fashion~

I'll leave you here with some street snaps (I wish I could have taken more!!)
and pictures of my own purchase ♡

«【Laforet HARAJUKU】Opened in 1978. Tokyo's leading dedicated fashion building, with 140 tenants dealing in ladies' and men's wear, accessories, shoes, bags, CDs and cafés. Here you can enjoy the latest fashion, culture and food. It exists as a base communicating information about fashion and culture and consistently attracts those who are sensitive to prevailing trends. It plays a role as a landmark for Harajuku, the fashion city. Laforet HARAJUKU, which will mark the 39th anniversary of its opening in October 2017, has launched the Laforet HARAJUKU World Tour to strengthen its ability to bring Harajuku fashion culture to the world. It is scheduled to run a booth at Who's Next/Premiere Classe, an international fashion trade fair and to open a pop-up shop at a select shop called L'EXCEPTION. »

What an amazing announcement for every lolita and harajuku fashion lover in Europe for both short and long term! Laforet HARAJUKU coming to Who's Next/Premier Classe could help many Japanese brand to find some reseller or stockist all around Europe. Maybe we could soon find some Nile Perch or Jane Marple near to us? But whatever comes out of Who's Next/Premiere Classe, I'll be patiently waiting for the pop-up store to open! I definitely hope to find some good deal! I hope we will meet there ♡

Monday, March 20, 2017

First day in Barcelona!! I've been waiting for this week-end to come for so long~ I'm glad I could spend these three lovely days with Marie, Tro-tro and Sandra ♡ After waking up way too early and spending too many hours in airports we finally made it to this amazing city.

We spent one afternoon full tourist mode and I couldn't be happier! We first went to the Harry Potter inspired Pudding Café, then Park Güell and finally Barcelona Cathedral. I wish I could have spent more days in Barcelona, definitely a destination I would like to come back to.

I loved everything about this Harry Potter café's decoration: roof, walls, accessories, everything was perfectly on theme. I really liked the fact that it was more subtle than I thought it would be: it also had that kind of old book store feeling! It seems there was another room downstairs with the Hogwarts houses flags, but we didn't see it until the very end.

Look at these cuties!! We sat upstairs, near the old book library part. It really felt like being in the Hogwarts library or in one of the common room. Moreover, not only the place was super cute but the food was delicious! I went for a hot chocolate with marshmallow and a salmon and spinach quiche, I couldn't believe the size of the slice I got (only 10€ for both!!).

Since we would be walking all day, we went for comfortable outfits (except Marie's shoes haha).

I really wanted to wear that Jane Marple dress! I love it so much, I'm glad I could wear it to Barcelone (still too cold in Paris....). By chance, it also matched the Harry Potter café! I've never felt so much on theme. Plus, look at these books, we found some strange things but this small dog portrait might be the best.

If you had any doubt about my final thoughts: I would definitely recommend this place! Some other girls told me the staff weren't really nice but I thought they were all lovely with us, we had a little chat at the very end and it seems they were quite please to see so many people coming in these late days (I guess every single lolita in town went there haha). They also have a Circus/Alice themed cafe in Barcelona, though we didn't have time to go there we would have loved to!

We also went to Park Güell and had a great time walking all around the park. Unfortunately, we didn't know there was a fee to enter the Gaudi part (8€), thus we came a little too late and the next enter time was more than 45 minutes after we got there. In the end, we just wander in the free part and got a lovely drawing of us from a local artist.

did Marie and I switch our shoes? maybe.

We spent last hours of daylight in the Barri Gotic, being amazed by every little streets and details we crossed. Barcelona is definitely a lovely city I wish to come back to. The only thing we could think about with Marie was how badly we wanted to have photoshoots in that area! I'll just leave porn pictures of the Barcelona Cathedral so you can understand how beautiful this place is.

That was a fantastic day that I was glad to spend with these cuties, it's been so long we didn't travel together! We had diner at a tapas bar near our flat and ended the night with a now traditional ice cream at McDonald's ♡ Leaving you with these two pictures full of tiredness and love. Love you ♡